sully
/ˈsʌli/
"sully" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sully” has 6 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #25,227. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #25,227
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To soil or stain; to dirty.
Corpus desk
Index EN-sully · sully · English
sully · rank #25,227 · 6 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #25,227
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 6 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH subterranean
Nearest frequency peer: subterranean (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “sully”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- Stratton
Stratton
74,777 corpus weight
- subsistence
subsistence
74,776 corpus weight
- subterranean
subterranean
74,775 corpus weight
- sully
sully
74,774 corpus weight
- superhuman
superhuman
74,773 corpus weight
- synchroniza…
synchronization
74,772 corpus weight
What this shows “sully” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sully |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈsʌli/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #25,227 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “sully”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 6 spelling variants around sully (IPA /ˈsʌli/), averb. Corpus frequency is #25,227 among 6,566 “S” headwords. Wiktionary lists 3 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for sully, with forms such as "sluly", "ssully", and "sullyy". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "SUNY", "Sulu", "sunny", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English sulen, sulien (“to become dirty; to defile, pollute, taint”), from Old English sylian (“to soil, pollute; to sully”), from Proto-West Germanic *sulwōn, *sulwijan (“to make dirty; to sully”), from Proto-Indo-European *sūl- (“thick liquid,… The correct English form is sully, spelled S-U-L-L-Y.
Definition
- 1To soil or stain; to dirty.
- 2To corrupt or damage.
- 3To become soiled or tarnished.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how sully appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
He did not wish to sully his hands with gardening.
THoſe Ills your Anceſtors have done, / Romans, are now become your own ; / And they will coſt you dear, / Unleſs you ſoon repair / The falling Temples which the Gods provoke, / And Statues ſully’d yet with Sacrilegious Smoke.
Etymology
From Middle English sulen, sulien (“to become dirty; to defile, pollute, taint”), from Old English sylian (“to soil, pollute; to sully”), from Proto-West Germanic *sulwōn, *sulwijan (“to make dirty; to sully”), from Proto-Indo-European *sūl- (“thick liquid, muck”), perhaps conflated partially with Old French souillier (“to soil”) (modern French souiller) from the same Germanic source. The word is cognate with Danish søle (“to sully”), West Flemish seulewen (“to sully”) (Middle Dutch soluwen (“to sully”)), German sühlen (“to sully”), Old Saxon sulian (“to sully”), Swedish söla (“to sully”). Also compare Middle English sulpen (“to defile, pollute”), Old English solian (“to soil, become defiled, make or become foul”), and see more at soil.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- sluly
- ssully
- sullyy
- suly
- sulyl
- uslly
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sully - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "sully", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).